Healthy Living - Inch Loss Yoga / Introduction To Tai Chi Kung

Rating:
Summary: Lovely Hatha Yoga and Chi Kung Practices.
Review: This is a lovely practice. It consists of two sections: Yoga and Tai Chi, plus you get massage and meditation extras. You can either view in French or English.

The yoga practice has some of my favorite yoga postures, balancing postures, and deep stretching. It is lead by Susan Fulton who does a wonderful stretching routine on another DVD called Essential Tai Chi (see my other amazon.com reviews). You practice movement and breathing (paranayama). She moves very slowly through the routine, so you would not like this practice if you prefer a power and sweat yoga. This is a gentle, yet challenging, true hatha yoga routine. There is a short intro, then three routines that you can do individually or all together (Seated Postures, Standing Postures, and Kneeling Postures). It is good for either beginners or intermediates - you can make it what you will, even provides some body toning. She finishes off with some inch loss tips and an optional Sun Salutation. Again, this is a formal yoga style sun salutation, slow moving and deep. Susan's voice is very soothing and her style is very relaxing.

The Tai Chi Chi Kung practice is a repeat of what you'll find on the Essential Tai Chi DVD (see my other amazon.com reviews). Lucy Lloyd-Barker leads the instruction. She starts by introducing many of the key points of the body, then explains the different movements. You start the actual practice with doe in, then the Chi Kung movements. If you have not tried Tai Chi Chi Kung, I highly recommend this as a starting place. You learn through a series of movements to focus on the Chi energy through and around the body.

The extra sessions include a very short meditation instruction where you could continue on your own. The other extra session is a guided self-massage, very relaxing and soothing.

Just one caveat, there are no menus for the individual routines, so if you want to do a different section you will need to use the search function on your DVD player. They have broken them into subroutines, but you have to access them by flipping through rather than an interactive menu. The lovely instruction makes up for this downfall. Also, the scenery is beautiful. It looks like ImaVision has published a whole series of healthy living DVDs, just do a search on amazon under DVD for "healthy living" and you'll find them. I look forward to try their gym-ball workout!